Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The Castrol 6 Hour race was an event in Australia that ran for 17 years from 1970 to 1987. It was a production machine race with very strict compliance rules which, to avoid hassles for the pre-race scrutineering, some entrants had a new out of the crate motorcycle sealed by the then ACU of NSW and raced it.....The first event in 1970 saw a Triumph Bonneville 650 take the line honours with Len Atlee and Bryen Hindle the victors.For the next event in 1971 I entered my 1967 Velocette Venom Thruxton with co-rider ex international Dennis Fry and good friends, John Herrick as reserve rider and Jim Day, our pit crew.I detailed the event in a previous 6 Hour race post....So lets forward to this years Easter weekend....Motorcycling Victoria has a 420 acre tract of land some 70km north of Melbourne, Victoria and Motorcycling Australia with sponsor Penrite Oils made "a celebration of The Castrol Six Hour, 1970-1987" the theme for the weekend open practices on all the circuits on the complex....

The complex has multiple circuits as mentioned, but the theme was centered around the road race circuit...

I took a partial panoramic view of part of the circuit....

There was a good representation of the many hundreds of bikes that entered the event over the 17 years as well as some of the riders of that time.... Joe Eastmure, won, well took the chequered flag first in a solo effort in 1972 on a 315cc Suzuki, only to be disqualified for having removed the horn from the bike....tough regulations! Len Atlee won the first event in 1970, Dave Hiscock from NZ, Graeme Crosby...Croz to many, from NZ. Bill Horseman from Adelaide South Australia and so on......Yes DQ was there and while we couldn't get my original VMT458 Velocette which is still in Perth, Western Australia,John Jennings stepped up onto the plate and having engine number VMT457 Velocette Thruxton ( both his and my bike came out in the same crate to Burling and Simmonds the Sydney motorcycle dealer in Feb.1967) with the bike in a similar patina paint wise to mine of the time, a set of racing numbers to the colour and spec. for the 1971 supplementary regulations for the race, and his bike became my old race bike.....!

John Jennings VMT457

DQ aboard VMT458 during the 1971 event...

While there were no races on all the circuits, per se, open practice was on in various classes of motorcycles and in the road race area, from the 6 hour class; pre 1963; pre 1975;pre 1990; road bikes, novice;road bikes,intermediate.Lots to see and so come with me on a photographic stroll through the areas around the pits and up to the fence on a section of the circuit for a look.....

Fancy a cup of coffee first? An enterprising local with a Yamaha and replica Dusting sidecar equipped as a coffee bar did a roaring trade all weekend...mind you he worked his butt off....

A racing 1954 Adler MB250, with owner, Otto Muller, head cut off by DQ, looking on....

Jeffery Richardson's mk.8 KTT slides off the starting rollers....

John Jennings slips out for some practice......

An old friend, Phil Vergison was also there with his camera and sent some pix along for me to utilise....

Joe Eastmure, to the right with his ( unsure about this...) 315cc Suzuki,

1972 6 hour bike....

Joe out on the Suzuki with #9 Jim Scaysbrook on the former Hailwood/Scaysbrook Ducati entry from the 1977 event.

Acknowledgement of items used in this Blog from my archive...

I often feature items from older Motorcycle magazines, including photographs and other drawings, cartoons etc in my Blog. Where possible I acknowledge their source. These items are often from "MotorCycle" and "MotorCycling", and the current copyright holders are Mortons Motor Cycle Media. I thank them for their use.

Where other sources are used such as Fox Photos, Keystone Press and other now defunct press agencies from the UK and elsewhere I attempt to acknowledge their source.

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DQ on his Velo Special

Velo Thruxton at speed

About Me

I've motorcycled since the early 1960s...both in Australia, the USA,NZ and UK to where my long suffering wife and I rode a 1972 BMW R50/5 motorcycle via the overland route through Asia in 1974. Careers in Animal Physiology and Automotive Instruments and now finally semi retired into music...as a banjoist in Trad./Dixieland Jazz bands.
Life for me is very interesting......